Buying Sanity: Why We Hired a Facilitator for Mexican Residency (And Why You Should Too)
There is a stubborn part of my brain that insists I should be able to do everything myself.
I file my own taxes. I book my own travel. So, naturally, when it came time to apply for Temporary Residency in Mexico, I assumed I could handle a few government forms.
I was wrong.
For two years, my wife Ally and I tried to navigate the system on our own. Specifically, we tried to navigate the Mexican Consulate in Toronto. Every summer, we would start the process months in advance. We would download the checklists. We would request letters from our banks proving our solvency.
And every single time, we hit a wall.
One year, the bank letter said "average balance," but the consulate demanded "exact balance." The next year, the income requirement jumped by $200—not a problem for our actual finances, but it meant our previous letter was now useless. By the time we finally jumped through every hoop, the only appointment they could offer us was in December… a month after we were scheduled to be back in Mexico.
We were stuck in a bureaucratic loop, and we were losing.
The YouTube Serendipity
Then, serendipity struck. I was doom-scrolling YouTube, searching for "Mexican residency tips," when a video popped up. I called out to Ally, "Hey, this girl looks a lot like our friend Aaliyah!"
Ally walked over, squinted at the screen, and said, "That is Aaliyah."
It turns out, our friend had launched a channel called Mixed In Mexico and was working as a residency facilitator. We hired her immediately.
The "Calgary Hack"
The moment Aaliyah took over, the game changed. She didn't just fill out forms; she strategized.
Her first piece of advice was something we never would have thought of: "Don't go to Toronto. Go to Calgary."
Because I live near Toronto, I assumed I had to use the Toronto consulate. But Aaliyah knew the inside baseball. She knew that the Calgary consulate had more frequent appointments, was generally easier to deal with, and—crucially—didn't require the hyperspecific bank letter that had been haunting my nightmares for two years. (Seriously, I have 5 different versions of the letter from my bank, and 3 from my investment company. )
Since we are "Digital Monarch Butterflies" migrating between countries anyway, flying to Calgary on our way back from Mexico was just as easy as flying to Toronto.
She booked the appointments. She audited our paperwork. She even caught a missing document for Ally that wasn't even listed on the official INM website but would have caused a rejection if we hadn't had it.
As long as I’m in Calgary, may as well have a good steak…
The Anti-Climax (In a Good Way)
I have had moments in my travels where handing over my passport felt like a gamble.
I remember walking across the border from Israel to Jordan to see Petra, handing my passport to a guard and thinking, “Well, I might never see that again.” I remember crossing from Eilat into Egypt to go scuba diving, surrounded by men with machine guns, wondering if I was making a terrible mistake.
I expected the Mexican residency process to feel like that—tense, confusing, and risky.
Instead, thanks to Aaliyah, it was… boring. And I mean that as the highest compliment.
We walked into the consulate in Calgary, presented the binder Aaliyah had prepared, and walked out with our visas. When we arrived in Cancun to finalize the process at the INM office, she had booked those appointments too. We felt like experts because she had coached us on exactly what would happen.
We kept waiting for the "gotcha" moment. It never came.
The Verdict: The Best Money I Ever Spent
If you are sitting at home right now, staring at a bank letter and trying to calculate pesos to Canadian dollars using three different exchange rates, do yourself a favor: Hire a pro.
Could we have eventually figured it out? Maybe. But we wasted two years trying. Aaliyah got it done in one try.
Sometimes, the "DIY" tax is higher than the facilitator's fee.
If you are looking for help, check out Aaliyah’s channel Mixed In Mexico on YouTube. She’s not just a friend; she’s the reason we are officially residents.
